Who We Really Are
by Starry-eyed dreamer86
Summary: We think we have ourselves all figured out. We think we know exactly who we'd be if things go bad, but you don't really know until you've lived it. When push comes to shove, you can't call if you'll be a soldier, or a healer, or an innocent bystander. Couldn't call if you'd be with the good or the bad. Now that the wall has come up, it's time to find out who you really are. SYOC
1. In the dark

**Hey all! How are ya? So yeah, when I started in the Gone files, I told myself I wasn't going to do this, but I can't help it, I'm addicted. *sighs* So yeah, here it is, my official SYOC. I'm going to continue with Fish in the Sea, of course, so no one, like, panic or anything. For this story, I'm promising no more than an update every two weeks until this is closed, and I plan to continue my normal schedule of a FITS updates, which is every Sunday, Monday morning if I'm running late. **

**So yeah, I hope you enjoy, and I'll talk more about information at the end. **

**If I owned Gone, Lana would never have let Brianna leave Clifftop to fight Gaia. But she did and now Brianna's dead. D;:**

"Hurry up, Julie!" Jessica Heartly stopped, turning impatiently to wait on her dark-haired friend.

She heard the rustling of a bush, as her friend's voice grew from being slightly muffled, to clear. "I'm going as fast as I can, Jess, but the pitch dark is sort of slowing me down."

"No need to be a smart-ass." Jessie pouted.

"I beg to differ."

Jessie gave her eyes a roll, and reached out, groping for her friend. She found Julies arm, and gave it a tug. "Come on! We're almost there."

She felt the arm pulled sharply from her grasp and Julie hissed, "Don't touch me!"

"Okay, now is seriously not the time to be a Chiraphobe."

"Chiraptophobe," Julie correct, then seemed to realize that was not the issue. "Jessie! You realize we could get in serious trouble if we're caught out here after hours?"

"Oh yeah? And who's gonna catch us? The secret child molester? That's the only person I can think would be out here this late."

"Maybe not out here, but once we get back to campus."

Jessie waved her hand, only half-aware that it was pointless, since Julie couldn't actually see her. "They won't do anything to us. My dad'll just say, 'No harm, no foul'. You know it."

"And if there is harm? Like say, we fall into snake nest because we can't see anything?"

"You're being paranoid."

"You're not being logical!"

Jessie sighed. It'd been a long time since she'd tried out-talking Julie, and she was starting to remember why. "Look, it's not that far ahead. You'll give it a quick look, tell me what you make of it, and then we'll go right back to the dorms. I promise."

"I won't be able to see anything! Pitch dark, remember!" Jessie was suddenly hit by an image of the girl, waving her arms comically and wearing her "you're being such an idiot" look.

"Trust me, you'll know when we get to it."

She heard her friend exhale, then, felt soft fingers brush her bare shoulder. "If we get int trouble for this..." Julie warned.

"We'll be fine," Jessie insisted. She reached up to her shoulder, grabbed the hand, and began to lead her friend ahead, the other hand waving carefully ahead. They walked in silence, until she felt it. Her had flattened on something solid that sent a jolt of electricity through her, causing her to jump back, wrapping her hand in the fabric of her tank top as though that were going to cause the burning to cease. It didn't, of course.

"There," she winced. "If you listen you can hear the hum. Don't touch it though, it'll shock you. Use a stick or something."

She could hear rustling, and, if she concentrated hard enough on the area it was coming from, she thought she could make out the outline of the girl, kneeling and running her hands over the ground for something to use. Suddenly the outline grew very still and the rustling stopped to be replaced by the sound of crunching leaves from behind them.

Jessie whirled, arm lashing, and she nearly nailed Chris Berryhill, which she knew only because the girl flashed on the light on her phone, immediately after leaping back with a curse, and shouting, "Chill, Jessie! It's just me!"

Jessie let out a relieved breath at the sight of the familiar pale-skinned girl, with her peculiar hair cut, both of which seemed too bright in the light emitting from her phone.

"How long have you been following us?" Julie demanded, climbing to her feet.

"Since you left the dorm." Chris turned the phone so the light fell on Julie, who put up a hand to shield her dark brown eyes. "What? Did you think I was taking a midnight stroll in the middle of the woods and just happened to hear the two of you?"

Julie's mouth turned down in a frown. "Don't play the smart-ass game with me. I'll win."

"Wow, someone gave you a bottle of grumpy juice before bed tonight didn't they?"

"That's not a thing," Julie scowled, shaking her head and turning away. "Shine that stupid thing somewhere useful. Like on the ground, so I can find a stick without having to worry about whether I'm picking up a snake."

Chris obliged, and they quickly found a useable branch.

"Point the light over there, Chris," Jessie ordered, pointing at the source of the low humming.

Julie made a sound that sounded like she couldn't decide if she was bewildered, or frustrated. "What is that?" She demanded after a few moments.

"I was about to ask the same thing," Chris muttered, and two pairs of glinting eyes turned to Jessie.

"Well I don't know!" Jessie pouted. "That's why I brought you out here!" She gestured to Julie.

The dark-haired girl shook her head and chucked the stick at the gray-blue wall that blocked off the sight of the trees and undergrowth beyond. The stick hit, sizzled, and fell, smoke rising in lazy tendrils. Julie's frown looked as though it deepened, but the light was to bad to be certain. "That doesn't make any sense! Who put a stupid wall right in the middle of the woods like that?" No one offered an answer, so she went on. "It's completely illogical! I swear, scientist are getting stupider and stupider these days! If they're going to experiment with the laws of physics, then they can at least have the courtesy to do it somewhere private!"

"You know what it is?"

Julie glared daggers. "I specialize in logical things. You want to talk about things that messes with logic, than you should've brought one of the science geeks out here. Tanner probably would be able to tell you. Or Miles. Even Reggie or James, but not me."

Chris brushed dyed strands out of her eyes, and gave her head a shake. "I don't like this, guys. This is starting to look like the start to every freaky sci-fi movie I've ever watched."

Both girls gave her a sideways glare, although, Jessie knew it was for different reasons. "I think we need to go talk to my dad."

**Short introduction, but it gets the job done. Those of you who have read my other story, you recognize Chris and Julie, so I'll clear it up now. Yes, I am using the same characters from that story. Not because I can't come up with a whole new cast, but simply because the characters in that story are the best I've ever created, and I'm in love with all of them, so I WANT to use them. However, there will be some variations from the other story, for example, Rose and Chris will now be an ex-couple. I liked the idea of that friction in this story. Also, Headline will not be located in Butchersville.**

**So, for the sake of those of you who haven't read FITS: This story will take place in a small town called Hanville, located in West Virgina, USA. There will be a small public school system consisting of one Elementary school, and a Jr. High and High school joined on one campus. There will also be a private school by the name of Headline Academy. Headline is a school that is known for its habit of giving scholarships to kids with extreme talent in almost any category(And I mean anything, from archery/throwing knives, to make-up artists, to photographers, to singers or dancer, or other musicians. You name it, they've probably got a kid who's good at it.) Many of the Headline students, especially those who's parents paid full tuition, have troubled home lives.  
**

**Now, I won't be calling this thing the FAYZ, since that stands for Fallout Alley Youth Zone, and this is not Fallout Alley, so if the form says "When the wall came up" or something similar, I mean the whole thing in general. I'm going to have a name for it all, but for now, it's the wall coming up. I will also not tell you the reason for the wall coming up at this particular time, because that would take all the fun out of it! Don't you all want some suspense? **

**Anyways, if you want to submit, check out the form, It'll be on my profile page, under the Hunger Games list. The list of excepted characters will be under the form, not above. I will also post a list of rules, read those, and send the password with your form, or ahead if you're like me, and are pretty positive you'll forget. If you submit more than one, you don't have to send the password with everyone, only the first. **

**And I'm only listing my main characters on the list, because trying to list all of the fillers would be far too much. **

**Those of you who've read FITS knew this was coming: Challenge!**

**1. Jessie and Julie glared at Chris for two different reasons, which were implied by their personalities. What was Jessie's reason? What was Julie's? (10 points!)**

** For those of you who don't know, points earn rewards for me. In this case, the person with the most points when the first death chapter comes will receive immunity from the death for the character of their choosing, and you can choose any, but only one.**

**Don't forget to tell me what you thought! XD**

**~Starry-eyed dreamer86 was were~**


	2. 11:27:15

**Right, so this chapter sort of came really easily when I received the character introduced here, so I went ahead and got it down. This weekend I had to practice for my Chair Test, so I didn't have a lot of writing time, which explains the lack of Fish in the Sea update. **

**Anyway, here's this chapter, and Louie belongs to Vulkodlak. I hope I did her justice. :)**

_~Crazy Theory~_

"Daddy!"

The door slammed violently into the wall causing Louie to jump, and nearly drop the binder she'd been flipping through.

She leapt to her feet, biting back a curse, and whipped around, knowing who she was going to see standing in the doorway. Only one of Neal's kids still called him Daddy. "It's nearly two in the morning. Curfew was two hours ago. What are you three doing here?"

Admittedly, she was a little surprised to see Julie, who wasn't one to just go testing how many rules she could break, and Chris? Well, it was strange, at least, to see her in the absence of Shaena Carson.

Jessica crossed her arms. "I could ask you the same question."

"You could, but the difference is I don't look like I've been wandering around in the woods." She gave a pointed look at Jessica's shoes, decorated in fresh soil and bits of leaves, and the bit of what appeared to be branch stuck in her ghost colored hair.

Jessica opened her mouth to retort, but Julie beat her to the draw. "Fair enough. We'll tell you what we were doing, and you tell us what you're doing."

Louie considered it a moment, then nodded. "Okay."

"There's something weird going on out in the woods. Jessie wanted me to take a look and tell her what I made of it. I have no idea. There's really no way to explain, so we're looking for her dad so he can find someone who can."

"Yeah, I found it when we were gathering wood for the bonfire Friday. Rose said I was only seeing things, and that I shouldn't bother the staff with it. We snuck out well past light's out, because that's when security is thinnest."

Louie eyed Jessica, wanting more than anything to find a flaw in her story so she could nail her to the wall for lying, but there were none. Everything she said either made perfectly logical sense, or was backed up by facts.

"Your turn," Julie told her after the silence had stretched too long.

"I was looking for Neal, too," Louie told them, setting the binder carefully back where she'd found it. "No one came to round at light's out. Well, I mean, they shouldn't have to, since school's been in session long enough for everyone to know when curfew is, but the kids in the room next to mine apparently have no regard for rules that aren't enforced by an authority figure." She shoved the shoved her dreadlocks out of her face scowling. "I came to let Neal know the situation, but, clearly, he's not here."

"And you were nosing through his stuff because..."

Instead of pointing out how ironic it was for Jessica to talk about nosing through other people's things like she wanted to, Louie replied, "I was looking for the teacher who was supposed to round tonight, so I could report them to Neal, tomorrow, since I'm guessing he's not here because he's gone home."

"Well, I can tell you he hasn't done that." Jessica snorted.  
"Why's that?"

"Because _home's _in Manhattan, and I doubt he flew all the way out there for a good night's sleep."

"You don't live here in Hanville?"

"Of course not. Not every teacher at Headline lives out here. They have a small apartment complex set up just on the other side of the wall, special for those teachers. You didn't know that?"

"How was I supposed to know? It's not like they put it in the announcements or the handbook."

"How do you know it's not in the handbook?"

"Because I've read it."

Jessica, quite suddenly, burst into laughter, having to take a seat on the floor. Julie rolled her eye as Jessie asked, "Who reads the handbook?"

"I've read the handbook." It was a good thing Julie jumped in, otherwise Louie would have snapped at Jessica, and they would never have gotten to anything helpful. "But that's not important. We need to find someone who can help us, in both parties. I think we should go to the security room. There's always someone there, and if they can't help they can at least call someone who can."

Louie nodded, glad for someone with a little bit of a sense in them, considering Jessica certainly had none. "Do you know how to get there?"

"Of course I do," Julie replied, turning at beginning to lead the way.

_~Crazy Theory~_

Faith glanced around furtively before sprinting across the yard, and throwing her backpack over the fence.

"Where are you going?"

Faith gasped, whirling to face the source of the voice. "Trinity!" She hissed at her sister, who was standing on the back step, with the light on behind her, in her night gown. Her hair, the same shade of almost dirt-blond as Faith's was bed-messed, and her feet wriggling from the cold. "Get back in the house! You're going to get pneumonia!"

"Answer my question!"

Faith side and glanced at the house, no lights had come on inside, so her grandmother hadn't woken, at least. She crossed the yard quickly and ushered the nine-year-old in the house. "You can't go standing outside with no shoes on, especially in nothing but a night gown."

"You're going to sneak out again, aren't you?" Trinity turned to face her, a note of disappointment playing in her voice.

"Trinity." Faith let out a sigh. "Look, kid, its not like we're doing anything real bad. We're not drinking, or getting into drugs, or stealing, or hurting anyone. We're not even trespassing, really. We're jusst going out to have some fun. Is that really all that bad?"

"That's how Grandma said mom started. Just sneaking out. Now she's dead because cigarettes gave her lung cancer."

"Yeah, well, I'm never going to smoke, so that's not a problem for me."

"You promise?"

Faith managed a smile. "Cross my heart."

And with that, Trinity allowed her to slip back outside, shutting off the porch light as she went, and hop the fence. Then, she turn on her heel, and raced back through the house. "Grandma!" She stopped at her grandmother's bed, and reached out to shake her. "Grand-", but her hands met no one. "Grandma?"

She backed up, until she hit the wall, then fumbled for the lights in a panic, but they only strengthened the panic when they lit an empty bed. "Grandma! Grandma?" She combed over the small house, but met no one.

"Faith!" She cried, running her hands through her hair, and nearly tugging it out. She screamed her sister's name, as she flung open the front door, and flew to the street, looking for any sign of the older girl, but there was none. "Faith!" Over and over, until she began attracting attention to herself. Curious faces began appearing in windows, and some even braved stepping out into their yard to watch. More cries began to mingle with her own as kids went to find parents that weren't there. Trinity turned, crying out for Faith again, and, instead, ran right into a someone whom she couldn't make out through the tears and the dark.

"Whoa! Hey, slow down, tiger. You wanna tell me why you're waking up the whole neighborhood?"

"It's my grandma," Trinity cried, tears steaming down her face. "She's gone."

_~Crazy Theory~_

"This doesn't look good," Julie muttered as they reached the security room to find the door half open, and a Styrofoam cup, with a puddle of what could only be coffee.

"A struggle," Louie suggested, bending to examine the spill while Julie slipped inside.

"No." Julie gave her head a shake. "If there had been a struggle, then there would be other signs. Everything in here is to neat for a struggle."

"Looks like you and I have two different ideas of neat." Louie eyed the piles of old burger wrappers and drink cups, and newspapers, and other things with slight disgust.

"I guess neat was the wrong adjective." Julie frowned, opening the door that lead into the security lounge. "I just meant that things would look more like they'd been smashed or knocked over than simply thrown around. Nobody's here," she decided, coming back into the smaller room.

Chris was knelt by the coffee, frowning, with her eyebrows knit together. "Don't hurt yourself, Chris."

"Haha, hilarious." Chris stood, and hopped over the puddle. "I think I know what's going on."

"This should be good," Julie muttered.

"It's a Halloween trick." Chris grinned proudly.

"A what?" Louie turned a piercing glare at her as Julie raised an eyebrow, and said:

"Repeat that."

"A Halloween trick." Chris's grin widened. "You know, every year a group is chosen to pull the Halloween prank to scare everyone, especially the puppies. I bet I was the staff's turn this year."

"The staff hasn't hosted the prank since Preston was Hope's age," Julie pointed out, watching from the corner of her eye as Jessie played with the equipment near the security monitors.

"Which makes it all the more perfect. No one will be expecting it." Chris spread her hands. "Come on, Jules, you're smarter than that."

Julie rolled her eyes at her, only half-noticing Jessie piping up. "Well, if they are playing some sort of prank they're being awfully sloppy."

"Why do'ya say that?" Chris flopped into a discarded rolling chair, and cocked her head at Jessie, slinging one leg over an arm.

"You mean, aside from the fact that Halloween isn't for another week?" Louie scoffed.

Chris snorted. "Who pulls a Halloween prank on Halloween? That's way too predictable."

"And totally not my point," Jessie added. "They left the footage. We'll be able to see when they hid, where they hid, and what to look out for."

"Well, go on and play it then," Louie demanded, crossing her arms.

"Chill I have to fast forward, unless you want to look at footage of kids in class all day."

Louie slumped into a chair, strong jaw set irritably. Of course, when Julie thought about it, she hadn't stopped looking irritated since they'd found her in Neal's office, or ever, really.

She was trying to recall a time when she'd seen Louie with a different expression crossing her face, and coming up short, when something on the monitor Jessie was using caught her attention. "Hey! Wait!"

"What?" Jessie stopped in her fast forwarding.

"Go back."

"Why?" Jessie crossed her arms.

"Just go back."

The girl huffed, but obliged. "Stop." She did.

"Okay, it's Neal doing what Neal always does." Chris frowned at the frozen image of Neal Heartly, with his mischievous eyes, joking with a co-worker.

"Play it from there."

Jessie pouted. "You'd better be on to something good, D-"

"What was that?" Chris sat up staring at the screens, wide-eyed.

"What was what?" Jessie looked back to the screen, frowning. Louie's mouth was agape, staring at the screen. "What!"

"Rewind it!" Louie ordered, jumping up and reaching across Jessie for the button.

Julie gave Chris a sideways glance, and Chris met her eye, and grinned. Despite herself, Julie cracked a grin of her own. It was truly amazing that, in the face of a situation as serious as what the screen had shown, she could still find something to be amused by. In this case, Julie guessed it was the fact that Louie only barely stood a head taller than Jessie, who was tied with Julie for shortest in the eighth grade class. Chris was only only a bare inch from being a whole head taller than the girls. Julie shook her head, and Chris sniggered, turning back to look at the screen that Louie had turned back.

As she hit play, Julie began counting down in her head. Sure enough, at the same exact time that her photographic brain had burned into her memory, 11:27:15, Neal was suddenly no longer standing in his office. He hadn't walked out, he'd simply disappeared. At 11:27:14 he'd been standing, making a comment that caused the older woman with him to laugh, then at 11:27:15, they weren't. A blink and everything had changed.

There. Then gone.

Completely unexplainable.

"Maybe it's been tampered with," Louie suggested, straightening and crossing her arms. "Part of the prank?"

"It's really good editing." Chris shook her head. "Like, the scary good hacker work."

"So Melody, then?" Louie had never liked the fourteen-year-old, but if what they needed was a hacker she was the best at Headline.

"One problem, though," Jessie countered. "Melody's couldn't have done it, because she's not here."

"What do you mean she's not here?"

"I mean, she's between foster homes right now, and they've got her holed up in Charleston," Jessie answered, reaching down and rewinding the tape again.

"Sean, maybe?" Julie watched Neal disappear again, frown deepening. "He's good with video editing."

"Possibly, but doubtful." Jessie ran a hand through her hair. "This is hours worth of editing, and It's only been around two hours since the gathering team came back, and he was on the committee."

"Well, even if it isn't his work, he still may be able to fix it," Julie suggested.

"Yeah, that's true." Jessie nodded. "Should we go get him?"

"We're not allowed in the boys' dorms," Louie warned.

Jessie's face hardened, and she opened her mouth to snap, but Julie cut her off. "Okay, we'll wait until he comes out."

"Well, by then they'll probably have pulled the prank," Jessie argued.

"Then we'll have saved Sean some time, huh?" Julie gave her friend a look of warning that caused her to fall silent, grounding her teeth.

"Don't snap at me for being paranoid, but what if they isn't video editing?" Chris chewed on her lip.

"Can't be anything else," Julie dismissed her.

"Julie, be a normal kid for a minute and indulge in a what-if question," Chris pouted.

Julie blew out a breath. "If it's real, then when kids start waking up in a few hours and going for breakfast, or to their classes, and find none of the familiar leadership faces their going to freak out. Panic. They'll need someone to be calm, collected. Someone to follow, and to seem like they know what their doing, even if they have no idea."

Jessie winced. "Please tell me I'm not on the same page."

Julie shook her head. "As much as I can't stand her, there's no one more qualified then-"

Chris groaned, looking sick. "Rose."


	3. The Importance of Calm

**Right, so I'll be pretty quick about this. **

**Thanks to all of my reviewers! You're all really awesome. :) And to everyone who's submitted. I've been receiving a good mix of personalities and back grounds and what not. **

**So, this chapter, we'll learn a little about the size of the dome. I'm not sure it'll be quite as large as Perdido beach, but it'll still manage to be fairly sized.**

**That's all I'll say for now. Enjoy! and remember I don't own anything I haven't created. **

_~The Importance of Calm~_

Someone was screaming outside. Calling for their Grandma. Daniel rolled over in bed, and shoved his pillow over his head like his dad did on the rare occasions that Daniel came into his room early in the morning looking for something to eat.

He had no idea why the man did it. It didn't block out the sound of the girl's, he was sure it was a girl, shouts. Now she was calling or someone else. "Faith!"

He crawled out of bed, knowing who was screaming again. Faith and Trinity lived two houses down, and Faith was the reason that the police stopped answering when people from their neighborhood called the station. Sneaking out all the time, and worrying her grandmother, or, that's what his dad said, Daniel, however, had never seen the old woman look worried when her youngest grand daughter arrived at the day care, which she owned, because her sister never showed up to take her home from school. More like angry. Very angry.

He shoved aside the curtains to his small window, and squinted out at the street. He could make out movement, she was standing in the middle of the road. Not a very good idea, she could get run over like that, ans someone was coming up behind her, someone much taller than her. The person touched her shoulder, and her figure spun on the spot. The taller figure put up it's hands innocently, and shook its head. Trinity's wrung its hands fiercely. Daniel couldn't make out what they were saying, but the taller figure seemed to gain her trust as it held out an arm, and she snuggled against it. The other person led her out of the road and into a house across the street from her own.

Daniel raced to his closet and tugged on his sneakers, then ran loudly through the house and out the front door, hearing it slam behind him, and knowing his dad would have woken by now, and would be out looking for him soon. That caused his feet to move faster.

He reached the house, and circled it, looking for a window with a suitable view. He found it sitting low, behind a wide tree with knots and low branches that Daniel thought would be perfect for climbing, but not tonight. Even if the rustling from the changing leaves didn't give him away, they would certainly see him though the window if he was up there.

So, instead, he crouched under the window sill, and listened, wanting badly to see inside, but knowing he'd be seen. The room on the other side of the wall he was leaning on was quiet, only the rustling of people, and the light clanging of someone messing with a cup breaking the silence. The night outside wasn't quite the same, children were crying for their parents, panicking. Racing out of their homes and down the street, screaming for moms and dads, or other names that Daniel could only assume were their brothers and sisters.

Daniel wondered why they were all running around like that. Didn't they know people were trying to sleep? And where were the adults? Why weren't they running out of their houses, snatching up kids, and scolding them for waking up the whole neighborhood? They certainly never had trouble telling Danny when he was being bad.

Well, whatever the reason, the chaos was making it very difficult to hear what was going on inside. Daniel had to crane his neck so that it was almost sticking over the side of the sill, and still he could only barely hear Trinity's teary voice.

"Why would she just leave?"

Daniel frowned. Faith left all the time, why was she acting like this was a new thing for her?

"I'm sure your grandmother didn't leave," a second voice that sounded like a boy's, replied. Daniel shook his head, scolding himself silently for not realizing that Trinity had been talking about her grandmother, whom she'd been crying for originally. "I bet she went to get your sister. Saw her sneaking around and decided to cut her off."

The little boy crinkled his nose. Whoever this boy was, he was a really bad liar.

"Then why haven't they come back yet?" Trinity questioned.

"I don't know, kid," the boy admitted. "Maybe-"

"Tony, Tony!" A third voice interrupted the boy, this one high-pitched and squeaky, much like the girls at daycare.

In fact, this voice sounded extremely similar to Dianne Vega, from daycare. The slanty-eyed girl with the, as Danny's dad called it, ridiculous haircut, who got everyone in trouble with the caretakers all the time. "Tony! Dad and Daddy aren't here!"

_~The Importance of Calm~_

"Dianne!"

Trinity watched quietly as Antonio put a soothing hand on the younger girl's shoulder. It was amazing, that even when finding out his own parents were gone he still managed to keep himself calm and collected.

"Dianne! Calm down!" He ordered, giving her a stern look.

"You don't understand!" The little girl cried, eyes welling over with tears. "They're gone!"

"Yeah, Di, I got that," Antonio replied, not breaking his calm demeanor. "But you have to stay calm, okay? What does Dad always say about panicking?"

Dianne sniffed, and wiped her face. "That's how people get hurt, or killed."

"Exactly," Antonio confirmed. "Now, I'm going to go find out what's going on, okay? Go get Al, tell her only what you know for a fact, don't add anything you think, okay? And tell her I want her to watch you and Trinity until I get back."

"And if Daddy or Dad comes back?"

"Then tell them I'm out looking for them, and that they should call me, so I know everything's alright."

Dianne nodded, and gave her brother a quick hug. "Don't panic?" The advise sounded uncertain, but Antonio laughed.

"Don't worry, kid, I'll be alright."

Dianne pulled away, gave her head a sharp jerk of approval, then bounded back through the house, crying, "Al!"

Antonio looked to Trinity. "I'll find you're sister if I can, or your grandmother, and tell them to come get you, okay?"

Trinity nodded numbly, not meeting his pale green gaze. She heard him leave, the door closing quietly behind him, but continued to stare down into the warm, dark brown liquid he'd made for her. She'd never had tea hot before, Grandma always made it cold, but she found it tasted rather good this way, too.

"Tony?" The tall girl who must have been Al came skidding to a halt, mop of red hair in sleepy disarray. "Where's Tony?"

"I told you!" Dianne came stomping in behind her, and Trinity smiled behind the cup she had raised to her mouth at the way the little girl scrunched up her face in frustration. She wanted to ask her how old she was, but couldn't make the words sound right to fit the situation. "Tony went to find Dad and Daddy!"

"Why? Where are they?"

"Well, if we knew that, then he wouldn't have to go looking for them, now would he?" Faith had always said that stupid questions annoyed her to no end, and Trinity had never quite understood what she meant, until now.

"Who are you?" Al demanded, crossing her arms and glaring at the blond girl, seated at the small table.

"That's what I was trying to tell you!" Dianne huffed. "This is Trinity! Antonio said you had to watch the two of us until he got home."

"Of course, you would think you would recognize me, since you life right across the street from me." Trinity pointed out, despite the fact that she didn't know Antonio, or either of these girls, herself.

Al, apparently, didn't hear her. "This is bad! This is so bad! What are we going to do? What if they're hurt! Or dead!"

Trinity groaned and plopped her head in her hands, realizing how stupid she must have looked not even ten minutes ago, when she'd been having a similar break-down.

She stiffened when she felt a presence beside her, guessing it was Dianne, since she could still hear Al's panicking voice across the kitchen. "My brother usually is good at coming up with a plan, but leaving her in charge was a bad decision." The undeniable lisp of young age confirmed Trinity's suspicions.

She sat up, and looked at Dianne. "Is this normal?"

The little Asian girl nodded. "She's scared of everything. She can't stay calm for almost anything. It drives Dad nuts." She stuck out her tongue and rolled her eyes back in her head, with her fingers twirling around her ears in a very childish reenactment of crazy that made Trinity giggle.

"You think I should be in charge then?"

Dianne's eyes widened. "Oh no! Tony said that Al's in charge!"

"Yeah, but, sometimes you have to break the rules if you want to do the right thing, and keep people safe." Trinity could hear the words of her sister ringing in her head as they left her mouth. Words that she had never believed, but now was seeing the point of.

Dianne's eyes widened in alarm. "But, breaking rules is bad!"

"So is panicking." Trinity looked pointedly at the red-haired girl pacing the kitchen in tears.

Dianne chewed at her lip, glancing at her sister. "You won't panic?"

"My panic's all out now." She smiled reassuringly, but Dianne still didn't look to happy with her decision when she said:

"Okay."

"Hey!" Trinity stood, and snatched the much taller girl's shoulder. Al stopped mid-sentence and stared at her in shock. "Chill the freak-out hormones and shut up so the rest of us can think." Faith was good at being in charge, so it only seemed right to take on her persona.

Al sputtered uncertainly, then fell silent, frowning. "Good," Trinity nodded. "Now, does you're family have a panic room or something?"

"A what?" Al furrowed her brow.

"Panic room," Trinity repeated. "You know, a safe room, in case of a break-in or other emergency." Niether of the girls showed any signs of recognition. Trinity shook her head. "Well, we have one at my house. Come on, we'll leave a note so your brother knows where to find us."

"But Tony told us to stay here!"

"Yeah, Dianne, but I think your brother would rather you be safe than within the rules." Dianne chewed fiercely at her lip, but nodded, and went to fetch her a piece of paper and something to write with. After scribbling out the note, and pinning it to the fridge with one of the many magnets, she ushered the other girls out of the room, and to her home, into the panic room that her grandmother had built after someone broke their window in the middle of the night nearly a year ago.

She took in a deep breath, expecting to be stuck in there for a while, and then shoved the heavy steel door shut, and turned the lock.

_~The Importance of Calm~_

Faith glanced around, the lack of police sirens and other normal noises making her uneasy. It was silent, with only the song of the crickets, just like back in her own neighborhood. Like in the good part of town.

She shook her head, dismissing the feeling as she reached her destination. The old chain link fence was topped with sharp, twisted prongs that made climbing over it difficult, and hazardous to the arms and legs, so Derek, her boyfriend, had taken to the bottom with a lighter and a thick blade, trying to create a hole. The work was tedious, and Faith had believed it would get them no where. You couldn't cut a chain link fence, but Derek didn't give up, and after weeks of persistence, he managed to split the link he'd been working at. After that, pulling at the links to create a sizable hole was much easier.

Faith found her entryway, and slipped through, cursing when her bag caught on one of the links, giving a sharp tug and wincing when the fence rattled loudly. She stood, putting a hand on the fence to silence it, then, when the crickets decide they could return their songs in peace, Faith dusted herself off, and sprinted across the hard-packed dirt of the make-shift basketball court, and through the rickety door, into the warehouse.

"Well, it's about time!" Faith smiled at Derek, who stood from his spot on the dilapidated couch upon her arrival. "Honestly, I thought you were ditching us tonight."

"Nah." Faith shook her head, handing the dark-haired boy her bag as she passed. "I just had to deal with my sister. She caught me again."

"What a little brat," Derek muttered, pulling bags of chips and other treats from the worn bag, as Faith flopped onto the couch, coughing slightly as it stirred up dust and the smell of cigarette smoke.

"Don't talk about her like that," Faith ordered. "She's just a scared little girl who lost her mother, and is scared of loosing her sister, too. If it's anyone's fault it's my stupid grandma's." Faith concentrated on the image of the old woman's face, and felt herself changing. Felt her hair shrink back into her head, and her eyes sink deeper into her skull. Her nose broadened and her skin becoming slack and wrinkled. Felt her hands shrivel and her spin bend awkwardly.

And when she felt herself stop changing, she grinned, and opened her eyes. In the dried voice of her grandmother, she said, "That one. She's just like her mother. She'll end up diseased, or shot."

The room rang with jovial laughter as Faith's features morphed back into her own grinning face.

"I'm so glad you went freaky X-man, it makes for great entertainment," Derek told her, taking a seat beside her.

Faith snuggled into his side as he wrapped an arm around her, and replied, "It's also good for getting your cigarettes and liquor, which is your main concern, right?"

"Your lack of faith hurts," Derek teased.

Faith frowned as she took a proper look around and realized the significant emptiness of their warehouse. "Where is everyone?"

The room was occupied by only five of their band of misfits, and they were the four youngest, aside from Derek, who was had turned fifteen two months before. Runt was the youngest of them all, at nine, the same age as Trinity, and Derek's little sister. Blue was eleven, with white hair almost as shocking as her eyes, and streaked with spontaneous light blue to match her eyes. Then there was C.J, who was twelve, like Faith, and had only been around for a week. Since she had started hanging around Faith. Since she had found out she was different.

The group was a primarily girl group. The only guys allowed around were wither related to, or had some other relationship to a member of the group, like Derek. They were a sort of like a new family for girls who's real family wasn't exactly satisfactory. Most simply had troubled homes. Absent parents, or abusive parents, or otherwise dead. However, the youngest four were different. They had, as Derek called it, "gone X-Man". Blue had discovered the ability to take control of electricity during a bad storm a month before, when her light's had gone out, and in a panic, she had managed to bring them back to life. C.J had come to live with her aunt and uncle in Hanville while her parents recovered from a particularly terrible house fire that she had caused with an uncanny ability to create fire in the palm of her hand with nothing. And Runt, her parents had threatened to throw in a mental institution when she claimed she hadn't touched the girl who'd shoved her in the hall at school, then went flying into the wall, claiming, just as man witnesses had, that Runt had pushed her. Runt couldn't convince her parents that she hadn't touched her, that she'd just moved when she'd thought about it. Derek, who had already witnessed Faith's own powers, which she had discovered shortly before Blue, told his parents that if they wanted to send her away, they'd have to get through him, so they'd kicked both kids out. Derek and Runt had been living at the warehouse since then.

None had much control, since they hadn't known about the abilities for a long enough length of time, but they were learning fairly fast. Faith half-hoped they could use their powers to become heroes, like in the movies, and she could finally give Trinity what she deserved, but she knew that couldn't happen in real life. She'd be shunned for her powers. Sent of to some experimental institution somewhere and dissected.

They had to be a secret, which wasn't a problem, since the crew had been keeping secrets for years.

Derek shrugged at her question, and answered, "Don't know. They never showed up. I guess they all got caught too, huh?"

"You know how most girls think guys are cute when they think they're being funny?" Faith leaned away so she could look at his face. "I'm not one of them."

"_I _think it has something to do with the weird wall, but Derek says I'm being childish." Runt pouted, strands of short black hair falling lazily from her hat.

"What wall?" Faith looked at Derek, who raised an eyebrow. Apparently, she wasn't the only one out of the loop, for C.J looked up from the fire she was dancing on her fingertips, and leaned forward from her spot on a wearing ledge.

Derek waved a hand and blew out a unconcerned breath of air. "It's just like Runt said. A childish theory. The wall's probably nothing."

"But there is a wall," Faith pressed, pouting at his lack of sharing information.

"Yeah, out at the edge of town. We found it when we were going to get some food from Handle. Cuts right through his shop. Don't think it's anything to be concerned about, though. It's probably just some stupid science experiment gone wrong. It'll be gone in a few days."

"It's just like when I create a force field, Faith!" Runt added, seeing hope in Faith's worried look. "'Cept you can't see nothin' once you get up close. Just a bunch of greyish color. Shocks you when you try to touch it, and don't let nothing through. We tried. Threw some bricks at it, and it sent em' right back at us."

"Yeah," Derek laughed. "Nearly cracked my skull the first time."

"And you didn't think it was worth mentioning?" Faith crossed her arms, and glared at him.

Derek shifted uncomfortably. "Well, no. I didn't. I mean, my sister's telekinetic and my girlfriend's a shifter, am I supposed to freak easily?"

Faith shook her head. "You're unbelievable. Just because it doesn't mean anything doesn't mean it's not worth sharing."

"Yeah," Blue chimed in. "It might be another telekinetic, for the way Runt described it. Even more powerful. They might be able to teach her a few tricks."

"And might know someone who can teach us a few, too," C.J added hopefully.

Derek sighed. "Alright then. Since you're so eager to share, Runt, you can lead the way."

Runt cracked a grin, finally being believed turning her previously moody demeanor around faster than should have been natural. "Okay!"

_~The Importance of Calm~_

Nearly a month. That was how long it had been since Chris had stood in front of the door to room 609. The last time, however, she had been there by choice, and hadn't been chewing madly at her tongue, reluctant to knock, and alert her presence to its occupants. In fact, it had been quite the opposite. She'd been grinning, holding behind her back a box of sugar cookies, Rose's weakness.

Last time had marked exactly a year of their rocky relationship that everyone had told Chris would in badly.

Well, everyone had been right.

Chris ran a hand through her hair, and looked out the window at the end of the hall. False dawn was making the courtyard more detailed. She could the vending machines had never been locked up for the night, and the trashcan set up beside the door was still full, and again she wondered if this could possibly be real. That there really weren't any adults left. Mrs. Perry never left any stone unturned when it came to keeping the school clean, and no prank could've kept her from her job.

She forced herself to look back at the door, sucked in a breath of air. She had to get this over with. It was somewhere close to five-thirty now, judging by the light. Soon, the band kids would be waking up, getting ready for early morning band rehearsal at seven, and probably others, wanting to catch a morning shower before people started taking all the hot water, or hoping to make breakfast before everyone, so they could make it to one of the many tutoring classes that teachers held in the morning.

And before those people began to get down to the cafeteria looking for food, and finding only Louie, Jessie, and Julie there, telling them there was none, she had to have Rose down there, prepared with an excuse as to why there was no breakfast. Rose, who would come up with a temporary plan, until Sean awoke, and helped them uncover where the adults really were, and why they had made it look as though they had simply disappeared.

Exhaling, and half-wondering where the last few hours had gone, she knocked, but her tapping was met with silence. So she knocked again, louder.

Still nothing, at first, but as she was preparing to knock again, the door swung open, and in its place was a tall, dark-haired girl, holding a toothbrush in one hand, and wearing an expression caught between curious and irritable. "What do you want, Chris?"

"Lilah? What are you doing up?" Chris frowned at the girl's tank top and soffes, and the neat ponytail that all gave away the fact that she had been up for a while.

Lilah huffed. "Emergency before school volleyball practice. Your turn."

Chris shook her head. "Um...right. I need Rose."

"Why?" Lilah looked worried. "You're not going to try to make things up with her again, are you?"

"No-"

"Because that's just stupid-"

"Lilah, I-"

"Rose only made you miserable when you were together. I mean, she's my room mate and all, and we're friends, sort of, but she was a bitch to you and-"

"Lilah!" Lilah froze, mid-sentence, staring wide-eyed at the younger girl.

"That's not why I need Rose."

"Well then, why do you need her?"

Chris crossed her arms, glaring up at her. "Why can't you just help me out without playing twenty questions?"

"I wanna know what's going on."

"I was told not to tell anyone until we were certain. We don't want to cause unnecessary panic." Chris told her.

"Well, maybe I can help."

"No. Rose can help." Chris stood on tiptoe, trying to peer into the room.

"Well, Rose isn't here. She's preparing for the photography club meeting today." Lilah glanced up and down the hallway before continuing. "You didn't hear this from me, but photography's in charge of the Halloween prank this year. That's what they're meeting about today."

"Wait. Photography's doing the prank?"

Lilah nodded vigorously, grinning. "Yeah. We have a really epic idea. We're doing it tonight. Hey! What's the hurry?"

Chris barely heard her. She was already racing down the staircase, and across campus. The library building was near the back of campus, by the band room. When she burst through the door, into a room lined with bookshelves reaching all the way up the wall to the class wall that looked into the second floor of the building, she attracted the immediate attention of the girl carefully setting papers and folders on a table at the center of the room, where chairs, and cushion couches were set up in a crude circle.

The girl's pale hand tightened around the folder it was holding, and her soft blue eyes turned to icicles in a matter of seconds. "What are _you _doing here?"

"Rose!" Chris gasped, coming to as stop at the outer edge of the circle of seats. "Is Photography really doing the prank this year?"

Rose dropped the stack of material roughly on the table, barely concerned when it toppled sideways and littered the floor. "Who told you that? Why are yo even awake this early?"

"Rose, it's important!"

"Of course. Chris always takes priority over everyone else."

"Rose, this really isn't the time for you to hate me, okay? This isn't about me! It's about everyone! Now answer the question, please!"

Rose blinked, and Chris did the same, both standing in shock. Chris had never yelled at Rose before, not at anyone really. Well, unless playful yelling counted. The shock, however, did prove to be enough to set Rose into gear. "Fine. We are. Why?"

"And you haven't started it yet?"

"No, we were going to do it tonight. At the volleyball game, so we could get Charleston, too," Rose admitted. "Why does this matter again?"

Chris cursed, partially because of the flaw in their theory, and partially because the force her teeth had used to bury into her tongue moments before.

Rose's brow furrowed. "What is wrong with you?"

"This is bad." Chris shook her head. "If it's not part of the prank then what's going on?"

"Christina Berryhill!" Rose scolded. "If you don't tell me what's going on right now-"

"If I knew what was going on we wouldn't talking right now." Chris snapped pacing around the chair. "Come on, we need to get back to the control room. I'll show you there."

"Show me what?" She yelped when Chris tugged her forward at a run, and protested loudly, but Chris ignored her.

By the time Chris had found her way back to the security room, Rose was reeling.

"What is your problem?" She demanded, taking Chris's slackened grip as an opportunity to rip her arm away. "That's going to bruise!"

"Watch!" Chris ordered breathlessly, ignoring Rose's whine.

She hit play, and the screen started the tape from where Jessie had left it paused, nearly a minute before Neal and his companion disappeared. "You dragged me across campus to watch Neal have a conversation?" Rose growled, rubbing her arm gingerly.

"Just watch!" Chris hissed, waving her to silence. Rose did so reluctantly, pouting at the screen.

"Chris! Are you ever going to get to your-Wait! Where'd they go?" Rose squinted at the screen, now looking at Neal's empty office. Chris took a deep breath, the shock of watching them become nothing sitting even worse in the pit of her stomach, now that she knew it wasn't a simple Halloween prank.

"Move." Rose growled, shoving her aside, and hitting rewind, and watching the disappearance again. Rewinding, and watching, and repeating over and over until there was no way she was seeing things. Then, she fell into the discarded chair. "A trick? Video editing." She nodded. "That's it."

"That's what we thought," Chris confirmed. "Thought it was part of the Halloween prank."

Rose stared at the screen as the seconds turned into minutes, and the room remained empty. "Maybe the staff decided to do their own."

Chris shook her head. "I don't think so. Even if they were going to do one that conflicted with Photography's, wouldn't they have put it into motion earlier? No one rounded last night, and we haven't seen any of the staff all night. Not even security, or Mrs. Perry. The trash cans are still full."

Rose shook her head. "They're just being thorough."

Chris bobbed her head. "Well, at any rate, when kids start waking up and going to tutoring, or early morning practices or rehearsals or meetings and finding no one, or going to breakfast and finding none, they'll panic, or get out of control. We need a plan."

"Which is why you dragged me across campus?" She sounded like she wanted to be scolding, but couldn't manage it. Chris nodded, and Rose mimicked it. "Okay. Gather everyone, and get them to go to the cafeteria. I'm calling an emergency student body meeting."

**Hope I did the characters I used in this chapter justice. Next chapter has three scenes set in stone, but you never know what'll happen between now and next update. So yeah. **

**Questions:**

**1. How do we all feel about "going X-man"?(10pts)**

**And Challenge:**

**The challenge, who can come up with the best name for Faith's little crew? (20 for best 10 for effort:)]**

**Hope you enjoyed, and don't forget to drop a review! ;)**


	4. A Stake in the Plan

**Happy last day of 2013 everyone!**

**...**

**Yeah, I know it's been over a month since my last update, and I do apologize, but, really, it's the holiday seasons, there's bound to be a lot of choas, and add that to a sever case of writer's block for the very end of this chapter(I'm still not happy with how it turned out) you get, long update period...**

**Anyways, I've decided on a winner for my name challenge. Actually, two winners. I loved CrazyKitten's idea of Power Tools as a joke, and I really liked Vulkodlak's idea of RLXM (Real Life X-Men), so I'll be using both at some point in this story. Not right away though. But since I'm using both, both will receiving the full amount of points. **

**Also, thanks xxbookwormmockingjayxx who's idea of fallen angles I like, but just couldn't see fitting this particular group, and to Lionheart VII who idea of Headhunters was interesting, but also not fitting for this gang in particular. Your suggestions an support are appreciated! ^.^**

**Now, moving on to this chapter. I'm also sort of hoping the sheer amount of content will help make up for my long update period, but I don't know, maybe not. **

**I'm just gonna let you read. I own nothing. Otherwise, Brianna would be alive. :'(**

~A_ Stake in the Plan~_

Mornings at Headline Academy never started quietly. The dorms were home to every student from kindergarten to seniors, on to house the girls, and one for the boys. Although it was a fair guess that the guys' dorms were louder, by far, the girls', elementary level girls still managed a lot of stomping and screaming when racing to get ready and eat everyone to the cafeteria for breakfast. Well, with wasn't just the elementarys, but they were a majority of the problem.

Like right now, for example. Two voices with the undeniable lisp of young age were having a loud argument right outside her door. There words were muffled and unintelligible, but the noise of their jabbering was enough.

Kirai Kuso sat up, blinking away spots of sleep, and running a hand though her sleep-mussed hair. She looked over at the alarm clock on her bedside table, and it blinked the time 7:00 back at her.

Her mouth turned down in a frown, and she stood, muttering about the inconvenience of her clock setting itself off track again. As she crossed the room, she snatched her hoodie off of the end of her bed, and slipped it over her head, wrapping her arms comfortably around her waist. The security of the hoodie made her feel much better as she reached the bookcase, where her phone had been left overnight, sitting on top of her World history book. She turned on the screen, and the time that it displayed on it made the pleasant feelings disappear again.

"How is it that everything decides to bust on the same day?" She muttered, thumping the side of the phone against her palm. When that didn't change anything, shook her head, dropped it back on the book, and turned away from it, leaning on the bookshelf. It was set up by the lone window in the room, which looked out across the expanse of cleanly trimmed lawn, patterned with neat paths, at the boys' dormitory building. It's inhabitants were currently spilling out onto the paths, careful to stay off of the lawn for the fear of facing the wrath of Mr. Natch, the decidedly grumpy old grounds keeper.

She watched the boys play out their little routine of shoving each other, or thumping arms, or racing after each other. Watched them wink, and cat call in the direction of her dorm building, where the girls were probably going through a completely different routine for the same purpose. People are weird, she mused with a half-smile.

The door opened behind her, and she whirled around, ready to snap at the intruder to knock, but it was her room mate.

Shaela and Kirai, unlike most occupants at Headline, had not been room mates for very long. Shaela's ex-room mate had moved out of country, and Kirai had been in a room by herself since she'd come to the school. They had moved her to the room with the dark-skinned girl so they could make room for the new batch of kindergartener. Kirai had always dreaded having a room mate, but Shaela was easy to live with. She wasn't even in the room half the time, she spent much of her time at band, or with her friends, and when she was around, she kept out of business that wasn't her.

"What are you doing here?" Kirai wondered, unable to put any harshness in her tone. Shaela closed the door quietly, and offered shy smile. "I thought you had band."

"I did," Shaela replied, in the matter of fact, almost surprised tone that she always seemed to have. "But the band room was locked. I'm assuming Mr. Burkes had to cancel because of the meeting."

"Meeting?"

Shaela nodded. "Weren't you wondering what everyone was doing up so early?" Shaela gave her sweet-natured giggle.

"Um, I just thought my clocks were off." Kirai found herself slightly amazed that Shaela had somehow managed to make this mistake embarrassing for her.

"Oh, well, no. They're right. Rose called an Emergency Student Body Meeting. Someone went around waking everyone up."

"Well, they missed me," Kirai grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I'm sure they didn't do it on purpose." Shaena sat her back down on the end of her bed, set up under the window, and went on, "Anyways, you should probably change real fast, unless you want them to make _you _the next subject of their attention." She nodded pointedly at the window boys.

Kirai turned back to the window, making a sound of agreement, and waited for the sound of the door closing behind Shaela again. Then, she changed into a pair of warm sweat pants, not bothering to change her tank top, since it was already covered by her hoodie. She headed out still tugging on her sneakers, and managed to catch up with the crowd halfway to the cafeteria, and was in the lead by the time they reached the building, where she secured a seat atop one of the tables towards the middle of the room.

"Hey."

The smooth, half-flirtatious voice caused Kirai to ground her teeth together involuntarily. Of all the people to sit by her, it had to be him. "Go sit somewhere else," She warned, not looking over, and not having to. The voice was impossible to misplace. It was Andrew Dean, the biggest flirt in the entire eighth grade class. He was known for his games, leading girls on and sometimes even dating them, and always only for a week. For some reason, she had become his latest interest.

The boy produced a hurt sound. "Why? You don't enjoy my company?"

"Not in the slightest," Kirai replied bluntly.

An amused laugh emitted from his spot. "That's just what you want me to think. That's alright. Girls who play hard-to-get are more fun."

"Well, then you're going to be rather disappointed, since I'm not playing hard-to-get."

"Aren't you?" He challenged.

"No, I'm not. I'm playing never-going-to-happen," she snapped, standing and moving to the table in front of her.

The boy laughed as he took as seat beside her again. "Nice try, Snowball, but I'm not gonna give up that easily."

"Snowball?" Kirai growled, finally turning to glare at the dark-haired boy.

Andrew flashed his, admittedly, attractive smile, and replied, "Well, what do you expect when you act so cold? I'm certainly not going to call you 'Fireball'."

Kirai looked away, and didn't reply as Rose stuck a shining whistle into her mouth, and blew it. The shriek caused the room to fall immediately silent, but it only lasted a moment. As soon as the shock wore off, people began to grumble as they turned their attention to the girl standing on stage at the front of the cafeteria.

"Morning everyone," she greeted with her congenial smile. She received a low rumble of voices in response, not all offering a polite greeting. "Right. Well, I'm sure you're all wondering why you're here this early."

"Ain't that the truth," Andrew muttered.

"Allow me to ease your confusion," Rose went on. "You're here to receive a few important messages. First: classes have been canceled for the time being."

A roar erupted I in the room, causing Kirai to wince, resisting the urge to cover her ears, and not even the whistle could penetrate the sound barrier this time. So Rose waited, blue eyes flashing irritably.

But it was taking too long to settle down, and after what felt like a few minutes, she turned to the people behind her, three girls, two of whom Kirai knew from class, and spoke to the dark-haired girl, who nodded and moved past her, taking the whistle as she went.

She reached the edge of the stage and raised her hands, waiting with an impatient look taking over her features. Slowly, people in the front began to notice, and turn around, frantically shushing those behind, who, upon noticing Julie Duke's position, would proceed to do the same.

And then the room fell silent.

And only when the room so so quiet that the silence sounded almost loud, did Julie speak, her voice a dagger, cutting the silence with it's calmness. "That..." she spoke slowly. "Was a tremendous waste of time." A guilty silence followed her words, and many were looking at their hands or feet, or anywhere besides the accusing glare that Julie swept the room with. "Alright. This, everyone, is the speaking whistle."

Andrew scoffed. "The what?"

Every head in the room turned, looks of amazement meeting Andrew's calm, half-amused demeanor. Few people lacked fear of Julie Duke, not with her reputation, and those who didn't were normally friends, whom didn't question her anyways. Andrew didn't even flinch at her harsh glare. He raised his eyebrows. "What?"

Julie looked away. "I'm ignoring you, now." A little wave of laugther followed, and Andrew pouted, and leaned back on his hands. "We can't answer questions if everyone asks them at once, clearly, so if you have a question, raise your hand. It's not a hard concept, considering you all do it every day. We'll throw you the whistle, and you'll ask your question, and we'll answer to the best of our ability, then tell you who to throw it to next. And if it gets so bad that the whistle becomes useless again, well..." She let it hang in the air, but whatever she'd been imagining was probably no half as bed as the scenarios that the people around the room were concocting. "Any questions?"

Andrew's hand shot up, and Julie rolled her eyes at him. "Besides you."

"Hey! How do you know it's not a legit question?" Andrew protested.

"Is it legitimate?"

"Well, no," Andrew admitted reluctantly, "but you didn't know that."

"I could infer." Julie nodded to herself. "Now, rose is going to finish what she was saying."

"Thank you, Julie." Rose nodded as Julie passed her, giving the whistle back. "Now, the reason we're not having class today is because the staff appears to have taken an unexpected vacation."

Andrew's hand shot up. "Okay, this one is legit!"

Rose looked doubtfully at him, but tossed the whistle anyways. "What do you mean 'appears to'?" he asked as he snatched the whistle out of the air.

Rose hesitated, biting her lip, which caused Kirai to lean forward, suddenly interested. "Well," Rose started cautiously. "We're not entirely sure exactly _where _they are, or why-"

"How do you not know where they?" Someone demanded from behind Kirai.

"Yeah! Don't they have to give notice or something?" Another put in.

"What's going on?"

The noise level began to rise as people began to join in all around the room. Julie met eyes with Andrew, who grinned. Kirai covered her ears, predicting what was to come, and sure enough, Andrew blew the whistle, bringing everyone back to silence almost instantly.

Rose took a deep breath from her spot on the stage, and said, "Look. We're not sure what's happening yet, okay? I'm only going to give you the facts. So here they are. There is no staff on this campus. I say this based on these factors." She held up a finger. "One: No one arrived for the band rehearsal, volleyball practice, and other various meetings that were supposed to be held today. Now, anyone in band will tell you that Mr. Burkes would not have canceled a rehearsal without notice, and probably not at all this close to competitions. Two: None of the teachers were in their rooms for tutoring this morning. Three: The school isn't as clean as it normally is in the mornings. We all know Mrs. Perry would never allow that if she were her, right?"

"Ain't that the truth?" Andrew murmured. Kirai had to agree. Everyone know that the head janitor was a tad bit obsessive compulsive about the cleanliness of the school.

"Four: No one rounded at light's out, which many of you know, I assume." Guilty murmurs followed her words. "We also have one other piece of peculiar evidence that we need to determine the authenticity of, which brings me to my next matter. I need Sean. Where are you?"

"What do you mean?" Rose frowned.

"I mean, he wasn't in his room this morning, or last night. I haven't seen him since dinner."

Rose scratched her head, glancing at the girls behind her. The girl with hair such a light blond that it could have been white said something to her, and Rose nodded in agreement before turning back to the crowd. "Okay, what about Arizona?"

"Rodriguez?"

"Is there any other?" Rose rolled her eyes.

"She's in a meeting!" It was Nia Rivero, the olive skinned girl who dormed in the room right beside Kirai. She was seated on Andrew's other side, and took the whistle from his hand when she spoke, waving it with such mock importance that it was almost comical, except, that it was a challenge. A challenge that Kirai seriously doubted the slender girl could back up. "Headliner. You know they never have any staff at their meetings, so it wouldn't have sent up any red flags for them."

"She's right!" A boy put in from the table in front of them. He stood, and held his hand out to Nia, who threw him the whistle reluctantly. He caught it easily, flicking his pitch-black hair out of his eyes and turning back to the stage. "My room mates a Headliner, and he never came back to the dorm room, so unless someone went to the studio to tell them about this, their still in session."

"Well!" Rose hugged. "Don't just stand there! Go get them!"

The boy nodded, and turned to leave, throwing the whistle back to the stage as he went. Rose yelped as it flew at her in a neat, well aimed arc, and jumped away as though it were a snake. I clattered noisily to the floor and skidded across the stage before coming to a halt at the feet of the older of the three girls standing on stage behind her. The bony, dark-skinned girl raised an eyebrow at Rose, who smiled nervously. She knelt, picking the whistle off off of the cleanly painted, black stage and handed it to her.

Instead of taking the whistle, however, Rose grabbed the girl's wrist and dragged her to the front of the stage, motioning Julie along as she went. Julie followed uncertainly, shrugging when the older girl gave her a questioning look.

"On to our next matter!" Rose went on, bringing her victim to a stop. "There is a peculiar thing happening outside, as long as my sources are correct. What we need are some volunteers to go investigate this further. Louie and Julie will be in charge of this-"

"We are?" Louie looked over a her in surprise.

"Really would appreciate it if you would help me out here," Rose mumbled, clearly trying not to be heard by the entire room.

"Right." Louie nodded uncertainly. "Er...We are."

"Yeah, so if you're going to volunteer for that, meet them out in the yard in five. Also, we need volunteers for the kitchens, so you people can have lunch, so anyone willing to help wit that should meet in the kitchens. Chris will be in charge of it." Julie coughed, discretely turning her head into her elbow, and Jessica broke into an amused grin. Rose ignored them. "Anyone else should go back to their dorms. You can make breakfast out of the food we all know is stored in there." She paused, then, on an after thought, added, "But if you must wander, stay on campus please. We don't want to loose anybody."

And with that, they were dismissed. Andrew stood, and offered her a hand, which she ignored. Unfazed, he used the hand instead to brush soft, dark strands of hair from his eyes, and said, "You gonna come, Snowball?"

"Come where?" Kirai humored, giving him a sideways glare at the sound of her new nick name.

"Coming to see what it is that Rose wants people to check out," Andrew responded with his grin still in tact, eyes sparkling with curiosity. "It's gotta be something pretty interesting for it to make Rose so nervous."

Kirai looked up at the stage, where Rose was standing, talking to the three girls who had accompanied her on it. "She doesn't look nervous to me."

"Well, that's because you don't know what you're looking for. Rose puts on a good facade, but when you've known her for as long as me, you start to pick things up. Here, in a minute, she'll glance around at everyone, put her hand over her mouth, and look over at the wall behind her, then she's to reply to them. Watch."

Well, he'd been right about one thing. In a matter of seconds after he'd said it, she did exactly as Andrew had described. "Okay, so? Lots of people do that."

Andrew shushed her. "Now she'll wipe that hand on her side, run it through her hair, and look around again." Sure enough, he was right again. "Shift her feet, bite her lip-"

"Okay, I get it," Kirai stopped him as Rose began to prove him right again.

"So, you're coming?" Andrew gave a contagious grin.

She ran a hand over her mouth, mostly to hide her urge to grin back, and though. The new light shining on the situation did make her curious. Sighing, she said, "Alright. Guess I've got nothing better to do now, anyways."

_~A Stake in the Plan~_

The act of moving the entire group clear across town to Handle's shop proved itself to be a true challenge. The had to steer clear of he road as much as possible to avoid cops, her grandmother had certainly gotten them out searching by now, and because of this, movement had to be slow. Allies and backyards weren't necessarily good for walking in the dark. Someone in a hurry was bound to trip, or make enough noise to wake up an entire block.

So, by the time they reached the shop, the sun was rising, sending rays of out rays of color to decorate the sky. Runt, who was in the lead, stopped by the corner of the deteriorating building, and pointed to the spot beside her. "Right here! Come look!"

Faith glanced at Derek who waved at the spot his sister was pointing to, but she still didn't move. After a few moments of watching her chew on her lip, C.J scoffed, "Well, if you're going to chicken out, then I'll go."

So she did, and when she reached her position, Runt didn't even have to point out the spectacle. She stared straight ahead, mouth agape.

"What is it?" Blue demanded, coming forward as well, she stopped in her tracks. "Whoa! Faith! You've gotta come see this!"

Finally, Faith's feet began to work again, and she made her way cautiously forward. Her brow furrowed as she reached Blue's side. "What is that?" She questioned, reaching out to tough the greyish shimmering that blocked off sight of the rest of the world, then remembering Runt's comment about it's shocking ability, and withdrew her hand.

"Didn't I say we don't know?" Runt crossed her arms and let her breath out irritably. Through her nose.

"Not technically," Blue replied, smiling.

"Yeah, well she certainly implied it enough," C.J put in, raising an eyebrow, but not looking away from the peculiar shimmering.

"Okay, it was a rhetorical question people," Faith snapped.

"Why didn't you say that two smart allec remarks ago?" C.J huffed jokingly.

Faith gave a short laugh, then said, "Well, we should find someone who can figure it out." Then gestured to the wall.

"Like who? Albert Einstein?" C.J retorted.

"Who's that?" Runt wondered.

"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of Thomas Edison myself myself, or Benjamin Franklin, but Einstein works too," Faith played along ignoring Runt.

"What are you people talking about?" Runt demanded, throwing her hands up.

"They're just a bunch of scientists, Runt," Blue told her calmly, still staring at the wall.

"Gross." Runt crinkled her nose. "Whatcha thinkin' about?"

"What?" Blue glanced briefly at the smaller girl as she positioned herself in her line of sight.

"You have your thinking face on," Runt informed. "What are you thinking about?"

"Oh." Blue shook her head, clearing it. "This wall. You said it shocks you, right?"

"Yeah."

"So its got electricity in it."

"Yeah, sure, but I don't see why that matters." Runt replied, frowning at the shimmering space.

Faith, however, had caught on. "Oh no! You're not doing that! Don't even think about it!"

"Why not?" Blue crossed her arms and set her jaw stubbornly.

"Every power has its limits. I know that from every movie I've ever watched, and we don't know how much power this thing has. For all we know, it could kill you," Faith warned, face set in a equally stubborn manner, as she reached out to grab Blue's arm, but the younger girl yanked away.

"I don't have to take all of it! If I could just weaken it, then someone else could take it down with something else."

"No!" Faith repeated, managing to catch her arm more firmly this time, and dragging her away from the wall, until the it had returned to the illusion of a continued path.

"Why do you care so much anyway?" Derek moved towards them, prying his girlfriend's hand gently off of the younger girl's pale arm. "It's not like it's going to be up for long. I'm willing to bet that in a matter of days the scientists will have this all cleared up. Half of the town won't even know it ever existed."

"What if it doesn't?" Blue demanded. "What if this thing is some sort of trap? You know what happens when you trap a bunch of people together? We start dying. Killing each other off, or starving, or worse! No! I'm not going to be trapped! Not again!" She paced away, running her hands though her hair frantically. Faith looked over at Derek, mouthing, _Again?. _Her boyfriend shrugged in response. He looked back at Blue, who had come o a stop a ways off, and was bouncing on the balls of her feet as she looked around. She stopped and whirled abruptly, one hand raised. "Do you hear that?"

"Man, Blue, you've gone loopy!" Runt scoffed, shoving past Faith and her brother as she made her way towards the girl. "I don't hear nothin' 'cept your crazy talk!"

"Exactly!" Blue grabbed Runt by her shoulder and spun her. She was right. The streets were empty and silent. "Coincidence," Derek decided determinedly.

"You don't sound like you before that completely." Faith set a glare on him, searching his face.

She saw him bite at his cheek and all doubt left her mind. Derek's nervous tick was far too easy to pick out. "I have to go home." She began to move swiftly down the street in the direction she knew would lead home.

"Hey!" Derek shouted after her, and she heard his footsteps getting closer, before his hand was on her shoulder, holding her back. "You can't leave. Not until we knew what we're dealing with."

"Then you can come with me, but I'm going home something weir is going on and I've got to make sure my sister stays safe."

"Whoa! Whoa!" Runt voiced, standing in Faith's path with her hands raised. "Now hold on a second. I get that she's your sister and all, but I ain't interested in listening to no goody-two-shoes naggin' me about stupid stuff."

"Runt." Faith smiled sweetly at the small girl. "I love you , but I don't care how you feel about Trinity. She's my family, and I'm going to protect my sister."

The younger girl made an attempt at tucking her back bangs behind her eat, and when it failed, she blew out a breath that sent them flying up to tough her hat, then floating in a lazy arch back down. "Fine but I ain't gonna promise I'll be nice."

"Please, Runt, if you were nice I'd be worried," C.J joked, popping the flat bill of the girl's hat, and nearly causing it to fall off of her head.

Runt's hands shot up and ripped it of, causing her hair to fly wildly in a messy, hat-ridden sort of way. "Don't do that," she snarled, shoving C.J, who only laughed. "And I can be nice."

"Can you? I'd like to see that." C.J laughed.

"You don't know me," Runt muttered, running a hand through her hair and shoving her hat back on. "You ain't been comin' 'round more than a couple weeks. You don't know nothin' about me."

No one offered a response, and he rest of there walk was in silence, this time, wasting no time with back alleys. There didn't seem to be anyone around to catch them.

Runt walked with her head down, staring at her fact, lips moving in a silent dialogue. Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks and her head snapped up, her dark brown eyes glowing faintly as, as though someone had lit a flashlight underneath them. This could only mean one thing.

Someone was coming.

They dove for cover, Faith crouching behind a large sign that was announcing discounts on pizza products at the parlor behind it, and Derek at her back.

It was a gangly boy, whom Faith placed somewhere between her won age, and Derek's. He ran with clumsy strides, at risk of falling lat on his face at any moment. He slowed, and began an awkward, sideways shuffle as he examined the area with quick jerks of his head that caused the colorfully beaded ends of his cornrow style braids to clatter together almost musically. He spoke, so low that Faith had to strain to hear him, and still only caught a few words, and then turned to begin his quire run again.

But his feet weren't on the ground long enough for that.

Among the incoherent jumble of sounds, Faith had managed to make out one very important word, and it had sent her into an impulsive reaction that, under the right circumstances, could of cost her life, and those of her friends.

The word "Trinity" had made Faith's heart leap worriedly into her throat, and in her mind, she formed a clear picture of little Runt. She heard Derek cry out, "No!", and felt her shirt, now black and loose, tug slight, but he didn't have a good grip, and she pulled away without really trying.

Tony's eyes were wide as he stared down at his feet, cycling in mid-air. They moved up, and his pale green eyes met the cold, chocolate colored eyes that had become Faith's. "Wh-what's going on? Are you doing that?"

"How do you know my sister?" she demanded, raising her hand slightly higher, and he was pulled further into the air with a yelp.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! I don't know what you're talking about! I don't even know you!"

"Faith! What are you doing?" Runt was out of her own hiding spot now, standing at the edge of the sidewalk, and scowling at her new doppelganger.

"You said Trinity! I heard you!" the other girl accused, still glaring up as her suspended victim, and completely ignoring Runt.

Tony stopped suddenly, staring at her with a new-found interest. "Faith? I though you were Trinity's older sister."

The momentary flicker of confusion from Faith was enough to give Run the opening she needed. She shoved at the air in front of her, and her look-alike stumbled backwards, Derek catching her under the arms as she went. With her concentration gone, Faith's appearance returned to her own, and her grasp on the dark-skinned boy fell away. Tony dropped like a character in a cartoon who had just looked down to see there was nothing underneath them. Although he was only a few feet in the air, the boy was to shocked to pull off a proper landing.

His foot twisted inward, and his leg gave out, sending him toppling sideways, yelling in pain.

Blue raced from her hiding spot, and over to the boy. As she helped him to a seated position, she gasped. "Hey, I know you. You're Mr. Vega's son. Tony, right?"

"Yeah," he replied, clutching his ankle, then wincing at the surge of pain it sent up his leg.

"Don't do that." Blue swatted his hand away, before pulling up the leg of his sweatpants, and examining ankle closer. She cocked her head at it, frowning at the signs of swelling that were already making themselves prominent. She stood, deciding, "You need ice for that.", and turned to Derek, who was whispering soothingly to a still half-crazed Faith. "Hannah's has bags of ice doesn't it?"

Derek nodded. "Just inside the door."

"Come on, Runt." Blue motioned with a hand as she made her way down the street.

Tony turned back to Faith. "How did you do that?" He demanded.

"You can't tell anyone what you saw," Derek pleaded, but at the same time he was saying it, Faith was pulling away from him, hissing:

"Why were you mumbling about my sister?"

Tony looked her over cautiously. "Trinity's fine. Only scared out of her mind. You're grandmother's gone missing, as well as a lot of other people in the neighborhood. Not to mention you had disappeared."

Faith shook her head. "I talked to her right before I left. She knew I was okay."

"Well she was screaming for you. I took her over to my house, across the street, and got her calmed down. She's fine now, I told her and my sisters to stay put while I went to find out what was going on."

Faith climbed to her feet, shaking her head. "No, you don't know Trinity. She's probably out looking herself if there's no one around to stop her, or doing something crazy because she's convinced that's what my grandmother would want her to do. She's unpredictable when she's worried."

Tony frowned deeply. "Are we talking about the same girl? I seem to remember her being sweet and quiet.

"Sure, she's like that normally, but everyone deals with fear differently. For her, it's trying to out-smart whatever it is that is freaking her out. There's no telling what she'll do."

"Then we should get back!" Tony attempted to stand, but his ankle didn't appreciate the pressure, and sent him falling back to the ground with a strangled cry.

"Don't do that!" Blue scowled as she returned with a back of ice that Runt was helping her carry. "You'll make it worse! Don't you know how a sprained ankle works?"

"So you think it's sprained?" C.J questioned as the girl passed.

"Well, there's too much swelling for it to just be a twisted ankle. If it gets worse too fast, I'd go ahead and call it broken, but for now, I think sprained is a safe call," Blue replied matter-of-factly.

"That's great," Tony rushed, gritting his teeth as he spoke,"but we have to get back to the house. I left her with my sisters."

"She's not going to do anything to that'll put them in danger," Faith assured with a roll of her eyes. "If she puts anyone in danger, it'll be herself, and even that is unlikely. It'll just be something off the wall, which will make finding her that much harder." He didn't miss the way she crossed her arms over her chest, and avoided eye contact.

"And you can't go anywhere on that ankle right now, anyways," Blue added, dropping the ice on the ground, and calling for someone to break it up. "Obviously you really don't know how a sprained ankle works."

Tony watched her crouch as Derek broke up the frozen back, and tug off her electric-blue jacket. "Was there anyone at Hanna's?" Derek questioned as Runt joined him in his efforts.

Blue shook her head. "No. I left money on the counter."

"Good girl," Derek teased. "Okay, kid, stop. I think that's good." Runt stepped away as he knelt, and ripped the bag open. "Alright, Blue, have at it."

"Someone needs to go back and check on them. They'll be worried if I'm not back soon, anyways," Tony insisted, watching Faith carefully.

"Okay, Faith and Derek will go," Blue told him as eh began to shovel ice into her jacket. "Take C.J if you want, but leave Runt. I may need her..." she looked over at Tony cautiously before finishing with, "talents."

"Fine," Faith agree. "We'll come back later and help you move him." She nodded at Antonio, who looked away from her quickly.

"That's good." Blue nodded, standing with her jacket wrapped tightly around the ice he had stuffed inside. "See you then."

Then they were gone. Tony looked up at Blue, and told her," I need to be out of the road."

The small girl nodded. "I agree. You need help?" Tony considered it then decided that he would need help, so Runt and Blue dragged him to a standing position together, and assisted him in staggering painfully to the side of the road, where he sat down hard on the curb, wincing. With Faith now gone, Tony's curious, yet careful glances had turned instead to Runt, whom he had definitely seen shove Faith without actually touching her.

"I've heard a lot about you," Blue commented mildly as she pressed the make-shift ice-pack to his ankle gently.

"Have you?" Tony tried to hid his wince, but it failed.

"Yeah. Mr. Vega talks about you and your sisters all the time. He's a really proud father. He tells us that you're his biological son, but the girls are both adopted."

"Yeah, but they're family anyways."

Blue chuckled. "Of course they are. Family's not all about blood." Tony smiled, but gave no reply, so Blue went on. "I like your dad a lot. He's my favorite teacher, but most of the other kids aren't fond of him. They think he's a queer."

"Well, they're not wrong," Tony informed, watching as Blue pulled the bag away slightly, and examined his ankle. "But that's not grounds to dislike him, and, really, it's none of their business."

"I agree." Blue smiled at him. "He's a good person. A little dorky, sometimes, but a good person."

Tony laughed. "'A little dorky sometimes'? How how about extremely dorky all the time?"

Blue laughed too, and said, "I was trying to be nice."

"You don't have to lie to be nice. I like it that my dad's a dork. It's funny."

"He is really funny."

They shared another laugh, and when it quieted, Tony cocked his head at her, realization coming over his face. "What did you say your name was, again?"

Blue glanced up at him, then looked back to her work on his ankle. "Everyone calls me Blue."

"You like being called Blue?"

Runt, who had been in the middle of an intense thumb war with herself, looked up, suddenly interested. Blue offered a smile. "Yeah, I do. Blue's cool, and tons better than my birth name."

"Alright. Blue then." He leaned forward, and pressed a hand to the ice bag gently. Blue pulled her hands away, and look up at him in surprise. He smiled. "Who taught you that, Blue?"

"What? How to ice something down?" Blue laughed casually. "That's pretty basic stuff. Anyone could-"

"No, not that." Tony shifted slightly, beginning to grow uncomfortable on the hard cement. "I mean the talking thing."

"What?" Blue scratched the back of her head with on eyebrow raised at the older boy. "What do you mean, 'the talking thing'."

"My other dad is a pediatrician, and when he handles patients, he always talks to them. Asks them twenty questions and gets them talking about things that get them excited. It distracts them from the pain, or the needle he's about to use to draw blood or give a vaccination. It's a typical doctor trick, and, hun, that's exactly what you were just doing."

"Hun?" Runt crinkled her nose. "Did you just call her 'hun'?"

Tony smiled at the fact that he had finally slipped back into his normal, flirtatious demeanor, and replied. "Yea, I did. Anyways..." he turned back to Blue. "You had some medical education?"

Blue let out an airy laugh. "Hardly education. My aunt is a paramedic, and she taught me some basic first aid, and stuff. You know, in case of an emergency."

"Well, I guess it's a good thing for me that she did, huh?" He then gave Runt a wink and said, "Don't you agree, Sweetheart?"

"You know, if I don't send you cloud surfing, my brother will if he finds out you been talkin' to me like that," the little girl threatened.

Tony waved her off, saying, "It's all fun and games, Sweetheat. It doesn't mean anything. You're way to young for me." Runt grumbled incoherently, and turned away, and Blue and Tony shared amused grins. "So," Tony spoke again. "Does your brother have the freaky 'lifting people with my mind' power too, then?"

"What?" Runt glanced at him irritably. "No, my brother's normal. Why would you ask that?"

Tony shrugged. "I don't know. You said if you didn't send me cloud surfing he would."

Blue let out a girly giggle. "She meant he would hit you so hard that you would go cloud surfing. She shifted so that she could sit down. "Runt's the only one with telekinesis."

"What about Faith? She was using it to lift me up," Tony reminded, glancing up at Runt, then back to Blue.

"Well, Faith is a shape shifter. She turns into Runt and then can use her power."

"So, are Faith and Sweetheart over there the only ones with freaky powers?" Tony pressed.

"No," Blue admitted, picking at the laces of her tennis shoes. "I can control electric currents, and C.J, the one with the curly red hair, she can control fire." Losing interest in her shoes, she looked up at him with her electrifying blue eye. "You can't tell anyone, you know? If people find out about us, about what we are, they'll turn on us. Kill us, or worse."

"Don't worry. Your secrets safe with me," Tony assured. "The last thing I want is a bunch of kids getting hurt for being different." He pause, then added on an after thought. "Unless you start using those powers to hurt people."

"We don't plan on hurtin' no one." Runt scuffed her toe on the sidewalk. "We ain't a bunch of criminals or somethin'."

"You can never be to careful, right?" He looked over at Blue with an amused grin. "Is she always this touchy."

"Pretty much," Blue replied with a grin.

"I'm not touchy!" Runt objected. "I just don't like you." She flicked her hand, and Blue stumbled suddenly to her feet. "And that's for agreeing with him."

"Hey!" Blue glared at her. "No using powers on me. I don't shock you every time you get on my nerves."

"I didn't hurt you," Runt replied without concern. "Now come on I want to catch up with my brother."

"We can't, Runt," Blue told as she climbed to her feet, brushing her jeans off irritably. We can't leave Tony here all alone and he can't go anywhere on that ankle."

"Well, then we need a compromise, huh?" She frowned, running a hand through her hair, and played with the bill of her had. Then, she shoved it back into place, and snapped her fingers. "I know! We can get one of those shopping cars from Hannah's, and put him in it. Then we can take him with us and he won't have to walk!" She grinned proudly at her work.

"That's actually not a bad idea," Tony admitted thoughtfully. "Well, as long as we return the shopping cart, of course."

Blue giggled as Run rolled her eyes, muttering something that sounded like, "Don't have to keep repeating yourself. We ain't criminals."

"Okay," Blue decided with a nod. "Let's go get the cart, then. Don't go anywhere."

"Couldn't even if I wanted to, hun," Tony replied with a grin that she returned.

_~A Stake in the Plan~_

This wall couldn't have been more perfect. Not in Timothy's opinion, anyway. He had found it out in the woods while collecting firewood for Headline's annual Halloween bonfire. He had decided it was something worth his own private investigation, so he had gone straight to his room without giving anyone a head's up.

He hadn't missed it when no one had rounded that night, which had intrigued him even more. He had chosen then to risk being discovered, by using his ability to teleport, something he had stumbled upon the Rowl twins doing out in the forest a week before. He used the ability to blink around the school, and found that the school lacked significantly in the presence of staff members.

His next stop had been the staff apartment complex, to check that they hadn't all simply decided to call it a night early. However it was as empty as the school had bee. Emptier, really, since the complex housed no students.

At that point, he had laughed. No adults meant no police. No mental asylums crawling with those pesky bugs that wished to crawl into your brain and plant seeds of doubt and strings of nonsense about insanity and social disorders. No one to take him away for enjoying watching blood spilling over wounds and coating screaming victims in their own crimson filling. He could have as much fun with his powers as he pleased with no one to stop him.

Then he had realized that wasn't entirely true. He wasn't the only one with interesting abilities, the twins proved that, and if he just put himself out there at that him, without any knowledge of what he was getting himself into, he could easily be taken down. Especially by his classmates. Many were as smart as him, maybe some smarter, or stronger than him, more powerful and skilled. If enhanced abilities were added to that, not even his shifting ability could help him win.

No, he had to be careful. He had to pick victims carefully, strategically. Like he always had. The first wrong step would be taking out those at the school first. It was likely someone would find him out if he was looking. However, if the town was in the same condition as the school, than Townies would be perfect targets. No one at school would now to be looking for someone then, and none of the townies would think to consider anyone at Headline. They were two separate communities.

The next step had been to choose the perfect victim. That, too, proved easier than he thought it would be. When he blinked into town, he had been rather satisfied by what he found there. Panic was a sweet thing. People were running about the streets screaming. This neighborhood was closest to the hill path that lead to the school, so it was the only place he could picture clearly in his mind, but it was a good place anyways. Why, everyone was so hyped up on panic, they didn't even notice him pop out of no where.

He could've snatched anyone he wanted right there on the streets and no one would've known for some time, but he didn't want just anyone. No, he wanted someone with friends, and family still around. Someone who's death would hurt many people. The mental torture was just as much fun as the physical he would inflict on his victims.

So he walked he searched the neighborhood for a someone calm enough to pull information out of, and after patient searching, found Daniel, crouching at the edge of a house and peeking around it at something across the street. He had been difficult to crack, but Timothy eventually got the information he wanted. The boy was an only child, and didn't like other kids, so had no friends. He was not the right candidate, but the story he had to share about the residents of the house he was stalking and the one he was using for cover made the time worth it. Inside a safe room in the other house were three small girls who were waiting for a boy by the name of Tony to return home from a quest to find out exactly what was happening.

Any of these three girls were perfect targets, but the problem was, they were behind a thick, steel door that only opened from the inside. The lead girl, one that Daniel called Trinity, was cautious. That much was clear from the note she had tapped to the refrigerator informing the reader of her whereabouts, and also that the door would not be opened unless a proper password was given; either the one she and her sister used, or one that the other two girls claimed their brother would know. So, he needed information from the sister or brother.

He could always just take one of the older siblings and just leave the girls in there little hidey-hole, but he'd never actually tried to take down something larger before. In fact, he'd never attempted anything on a human, it was too risky, so he was hoping to start small. Plus, it would be more satisfying if he had to put some effort into it.

"So, what are we doing now?" The five-year-old raised a skeptical eyebrow at him.

They were in the kitchen of the home, the stupid girls had left the door unlocked, with Timothy looking it over carefully, making certain there were no other clues to the girls' whereabouts. Daniel was seated on the counter, playing with a loose string on his flannel pajama pants.

"We're going to make sure Antonio knows where to find his sister. Notes aren't trustworthy. They could get lost, or worse," Timothy explained patiently. He had already removed the note from the refrigerator and stuffed it in his pocket.

"Well, what if he doesn't come back? What if he leaves, too?" Daniel was a lot smarter than a normal boy of his age, and he made Timothy weary.

"Then we'll be able to tell the girls, so they don't starve in there waiting for him to come back." He straightened, deeming the room clean, and ran a hand through his thin, black hair. The next order of buisness; get rid of the kid. "Hey, how about yo make yourself useful, huh?"

"How?" Daniel eyed him suspiciously, and shifted a little closer to the knife block that he had been careful to keep close the entire time they'd been there. It took a great deal of Timothy's self-control to not comment that the things would be useless against him, since his teleporting ability would render him extremely difficult to hit.

Instead, he spread his hands, putting on his friendliest smile. "What, kid? You don't trust me?"

"Why did you steal the not off of the fridge?" Was Daniel's reply.

Timothy's face fell out of its mask of friendliness, and instead, into a cold glare. "That's irrelevant."

"Trying to confuse me with big words isn't going to help your case, you know?" Daniel grumbled, turning away from him and hopping off of the counter. "I'll just go get them myself. I don't need some stupid...whatever, to tell me how to get some girls out of a stupid room."

"Wait!" Even as he said the word his voice changed into the higher octave of the blond Rowl twins, as he envisioned them in his head. He pictured being in the spot directly in front of Daniel, and the world blinked into blankness momentarily. Then he was across the kitchen, falling over the smaller boy, whom he had come far to close to landing on top of. Well, teleporting wasn't an exact science to begin with, and combined with the fact that he also had to keep half focused on keeping his shape, then it became precarious at best.

Daniel scrabbled away from him, wide-eyed. "How'd you do that?" He demanded, using a chair to help him to his feet.

Timothy picked himself off of the floor with as much dignity as he could muster, and answered, "Well, it's actually rather simple. I think of where I want to go, and I'm there."

"Teach me how to do it."

The boy's patience was wearing thin. He didn't have time for these games. The boy needed to choose what kind of annoying he wanted to be, because the jumping around and forcing Timothy to search for a different approach every five minutes was extremely obnoxious. "I can't exactly teach you something that I don't have complete control over myself, now can I kid?"

"Don't call me 'kid'." Daniel growled, face twisting into a scowl.

Timothy returned it, but he was far better practiced. "Didn't your mom ever teach you any manners, kid? You're supposed to be respectful to people older than you, and do what they say."

Daniel crossed his arms and stuck his nose in the air. "I don't have a mom, but my dad says that if you don't have a high school diploma, you're not the boss of anyone, especially not me."

Timothy crinkled his nose distastefully. The clock was running in his head. His target could come back any second, and Daniel would give away his facade in only a second. He had to get rid of him. "That's not the point. Look, I just need you to do one thing is all."

"And what's that?"

Timothy ran a few scenarios in his head, and decided on: "I need my phone."

"Your phone?" Daniel repeated, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "Why didn't you bring it with you when you came here?"

"I forgot it," the older boy lied, allowing his voice to rise indignantly. "Look I know exactly where it is, I jest need you to run and grab it for me." As he spun his tale, he began to mentally dredge up everything he knew about the town, which wasn't much, but what he did know was that there was farmland out on the edge of town, opposite from the school. It was where he did his hunting. He remembered a spotted horse that he had been trying to think up a way to get his hands on for months, years, but could never find a way to slip it away unnoticed.

"Okay, where is it, then?" Daniel snapped in a manner very close to haughtily.

Timothy ground his teeth, and in the calmest voice he could manage, said, "I left it in the barn, by my house. Spot's stall. You can miss it, trust me." As he spoke, he was ushering the smaller boy towards the door.

"Wait!" Daniel tried to object as they reached the back door. "Wait, you have to-" Timothy shoved him through the door, and slammed it shut behind him, cutting off the young boy's argument. Then, just for good measure, he locked it.

As he did this, the sound of the front door opening made its way through the house, and a voice called, "Hello? Anybody home?" Definitely a male voice, then:

"Trinity?" That was a female. Timothy cursed quietly. He had spent to long getting rid of Daniel, and hadn't had the time to decide on a disguise.

He looked around the room in a panic, mind racing. He needed a disguise. Then he saw it. A picture hanging on the wall of a small girl with the slanted eyes of Asian decent. He felt himself changing, becoming shorter, pudgier.

"There's no one here. I guess you were right about your sister running off."

"That's not funny, D-"

"Antonio!" The high pitch that was now his voice grated against Timothy's ears, but he stopped himself from grimacing. This had to seem natural to him. "Antonio, you're back!" He stumbled awkwardly on the chubby legs back into the kitchen.

"No, sorry, kid. Your brother's not with us." It was the boy who spoke, standing by the small wooden table. He was tall, and slightly on the broad side. Timothy scowled, if things went south, the boy would have to be outsmarted. Force would do Timothy no good.

"Who are you?" The great thing about being disguised as a little kid, was that no one ever got suspicious if they asked fifty questions.

"I'm the big, bad wolf in disguise," the boy answered in an all-to-serious voice. Timothy raised a skeptical eyebrow, and Derek frowned. "Huh, that always gets a laugh out of Runt."

"Not all little kids are the same, stupid," his partner rolled her eyes at him. She was combing over the counters with a careful eye.

Derek made a huffing sound. "Well, you don't have to be so rude about it." Faith didn't respond, or even look at him, just continued in her quest to go over every inch of the kitchen, so Derek turned back to Timothy. "I'm Derek, her boyfriend, and that's Faith. Your brother said that he left her sister here."

"You mean Trinity?" It was a good thing Faith had come in calling her name. Either Daniel had failed to mention any names.

"Yeah. Where is she?" Faith questioned, deeming the kitchen thoroughly useless, and turning instead to the other two in the room. There was no way she was older than Timothy, and the boy had to be somewhere close to sixteen. The thought sickened Timothy, why couldn't he find a girl his own age?

"She went out with my sister to look for Antonio and you." He crinkled his nose, and glanced between the two in uncontainable contempt. "Are you two really a couple?"

"Yeah. Why do you care?" Faith frowned at her. "Did you say where they were going to go look?"

Timothy crossed his arms, and set a glare on the girl. "One question at a time, huh?"

Faith set her jaw. "Frankly, I don't care about your opinion on my relationshp. So answer the second question."

"No," Timothy practically spat. "They didn't."

"So why did they leave you here? Your a little young to be guarding the house all on your own." Derek seated himself at the table and propped one foot up on its surface.

"So why did they leave you here? Your a little young to be guarding the house all on your own." Derek seated himself at the table and propped one foot up on its surface.

Timothy could practically feel the steam coming from his ears. "Put your feet down!" He barked, clenching his fists.

One of Derek's dark eyebrows went up, and his eyes lit challengingly. "Don't tell me what to do, kid."

Timothy almost snapped he wasn't kid. That he was older than Derek's girlfriend, but he caught himself, and instead, countered with, "It's my house."

Derek matched the murderous look that he was receiving, and leaned forward, lips parting to respond.

"Look," Faith interrupted, crossing the room. She nudged Derek's foot lightly when she reached him, and he put it down, reluctantly. Then , the girl continued, "We're just looking for my sister, and we need help. Can you help us, or not?"

Timothy took a deep breath, and stared at the girl. She was much easier to look at calmly thatn the boy. "We were supposed to rendezvous at school at noon." It was a long shot, a really long shot, but the school was the only place in town that Timothy knew about for certain. He only came to Hanville for school, and they didn't exactly get to roam off campus whenever they pleased.

"Okay." Faith nodded. "Then we'll go and wait for them there. She meant Blackwood, right?"

"She said, 'my school'," Timothy answered cautiously. "Does she go to Blackwood?"

"Yeah, she does," Faith stared at him curiously. "You seem a little oblivious. How old are you?"

"Uh..." Timothy glanced around the room for any form of salvation, and found it on the refrigerator. A picture of the girl he had morphed into was hung there, and on the white edges of it, a name. It must have been a school picture. "Five," he answered remembering Daniel identify Dianne from Day Care.

"Five as in 'preschool' five, or five as in 'kindergarten' five?" Derek wondered, leaning the chair back on two legs.

_Ignore it. _"Day care," Timothy answered, looking away from him, and his new irritating act.

"Well, that explains a lot," Derek muttered so that he was barely heard.

"What does that mean?" Timothy demanded, whirling, and nearly loosing his balance on the stubby legs.

"Ignore him," Faith warned, waving her dark-haired boyfriend off. "And go get some shoes on so you don't catch pneumonia or something outside."

"Why would I go outside?" Timothy questioned.

"Because you're coming with us," Faith told him in a voice as though speaking to a child.

Timothy had to remind himself once again that he _looked_ like a child. "But I have to wait for Antonio to come back!"

"Antonio's not coming back here. We met him down by Hannah's, that's how we knew to look here. He hurt his ankle, so we left him with our friends to help him, and we went on here. We sent back the third of our party to make sure they stayed where they were until we came back halfway here. She should have made it back by now. We'll pick them up on the way. Now come on, we don't have all night."

Timothy cursed mentally. He wanted to stay as close to his targets as possible so he could get straight to it when he got the password. Leaving put a major stake in his plan.

Timothy hated stakes.

**Questions!**

**1. How do we all feel about Kirai's new nickname Snowball? (10points)**

**Eh, I got nothin else...Don't forget to review!**


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